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Queer as Moms

I’m German on my mother’s side, or more precisely, Silesian, a province which was turned over to Poland at the end of World War II. The majority of German Silesians, including my family, were expelled. My Oma told a story about a long, slow train ride she took with her young daughters and sister at some… Read More »

It’s 2013 and the so-called ‘Mommy Wars’ are still on like Donkey Kong. The stay-at-home moms versus the income-earning moms have been duking it out recently in The Globe and Mail, The Guardian and Salon. Though the arguments come from different sides they are essentially the same, un-changed over the decades: ‘We work really hard’ — ‘We’re good… Read More »

There was a time when Catharine and I were total Inside Out (Toronto’s LGBT film festival) junkies. Heck, I even screened video shorts I made there. But that was then, way back then, in a land before kids. Now, during dates which are too few and too far-between, we don’t feel like sitting and staring at a screen when we… Read More »

Over the years, Catharine and I have had a few random, unfortunate moments where strangers mistake her for my mother. Or me for Catharine’s daughter. It’s icky. I say random because far more people are surprised to learn there’s a decade-plus gap between our ages. Catharine has described it (which is not to say she… Read More »

September 22-28 marked Banned Books Week in the U.S., and some LGBTT family classics were included on the top ten list again this year, right there with 50 Shades of Grey and — for real — Captain Underpants. Again the tale of gay penguin dads Roy and Silo at the Central Park Zoo in New York City,… Read More »

Three weeks ago today, me and dozens of other neighbourhood parents led our four-year-olds one-by-one through the gate to the kindergarten yard for the first time. Our only possible next move was to leave, to begin our adult days while our littles one began junior kindergarten. Instead, I practised my recently-developed techniques of how to… Read More »

I think I have a healthy, well-adjusted relationship to housework, though at times, I admit to channelling my inner-Monica. For example, I rarely pick up an iron. But I enjoy grocery shopping, and so this task always gets done. Good thing, too: my family needs food more than they need wrinkle-free clothes. But I love,… Read More »

An article in the Toronto Star a week or so ago featured three twenty-something adult children from three different lesbian households in Toronto. The point of the story: that these kids turned out fine, despite growing up a couple of decades before there were enough same-sex parents out there to officially qualify as a small minority. One… Read More »

The idea that you can’t tell your kids to be proud of their family hits you at your core as a parent. The new Russian law banning homosexual propaganda is why journalist Masha Gessen says she is leaving the country with her pregnant same sex partner and two children. In her post in the Guardian -which… Read More »

Along with some neighbours, we’ve dedicated two evenings a week this summer to soccer. More accurately, we’re spending two evenings a week trying to get the four and five-year-olds in our co-op to play soccer at a local league.

There’s this thing that happens in two-mom families. While current technology may limit our genetic relationships to our kids to one parent, the non-biological parents’ traits sneak into our children. As though the bonds of motherhood can alter the toughest DNA.

If you had to choose who you thought would be the first to feature LGBTTQ characters on a show, Disney or Sesame Street, who would you pick? That’s right. Disney. Disney is more queer positive. The empire that is methodically princess-ifying every little girl on the planet features lesbian mom characters on an episode of Good… Read More »